Media Buying

The US programmatic digital display market started 2020 off strong, but everything changed in late March when the pandemic put many advertisers on pause. Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss the publisher monetization partner's experience of pandemic volatility and the K-shaped recovery of ad spending.

Athletic apparel seller Vuori is dipping its toes in a new advertising realm with its first-ever TV commercials—an opportunity to spotlight its high-in-demand product category, as many consumers are gravitating toward activewear amid the pandemic.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom and principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin discuss what an advertising rebound will actually look like next year. They then talk about how to reach ad-free streamers, new podcast measurement guidelines, and whether WarnerMedia just killed the movies.

Amazon was ranked the largest global advertiser in terms of spending for the first time last year and may be set to do it again this year.

Facebook, including Instagram, will net $33.48 billion in US ad revenues this year, up 12.4% year-over-year.

FreeWheel will now lead ad decisioning across all NBCUniversal properties, removing limits placed by the fragmentation of platforms and ad technology.

GroupM estimates that digital will make up 51% of total US ad spend, a rare “bright spot” that has been a boon for Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a set of metrics to measure podcast performance, and the increase in measurement and targeting ability could help attract more ad dollars.

Amazon’s ad revenues along with its retail sales have increased as consumers continue to shift to ecommerce at elevated rates.

The programmatic ad market in Canada will be flat in 2020, but it still makes up more than four-in-five digital display dollars, per our latest ad spending forecast. The pandemic’s impact on overall ad spending was evident in stagnant programmatic digital display ad spending, which is expected to grow just 0.6% in 2020 after several strong years of growth.

On July 1, 2020, many advertisers pulled their spending from Facebook and Instagram, and in some cases Twitter, to show solidarity with the racial justice movement and for other reasons. While it got a lot of media attention, the ad boycott did not negatively affect the social properties’ ad revenues.

Political Ads: Georgia’s runoff elections have spurred more than a quarter of a billion in additional ad spending, which could propel total US political ad spend past our original estimates.

Our ad spending forecasts were revised downwards for 27 of the 37 markets we measure, but a better-than-expected Q2 in the US means our lookout for the ad market overall is slightly more optimistic than it was in June.

With the pandemic driving traffic to online shopping sites like Chinese ecommerce company JD.com, demand for ads on the platform will also rise, leading the company to grow its digital ad revenues strongly this year.

Radio: SiriusXM’s incoming CEO is considering a new ad-supported direction for the satellite radio service, but radio ad spending growth will be negative after rebounding next year, so this may not be the savviest move.

The food and beverage category is seeing the biggest gains in retail ecommerce sales growth this year as more consumers have gotten comfortable shopping online amid the pandemic. Over the past few months, Kellogg’s has also experienced this digital growth and implemented ongoing efforts to adapt to the rapidly changing retail environment.

Sports postponements and broader cord-cutting trends will slow the growth of addressable TV ad spending to just 4.3% this year, but election-related ad targeting will keep the format growing.

Today marks a big milestone at Insider Intelligence: We launched our new platform, unifying our two brands (eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence) into a single online experience and expanded our Financial Services coverage. We also just published a report that’s been long in the making--and it happens to be our very first under the new brand.

David Cohen, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) joins eMarketer co-founder and Insider Intelligence chief evangelist Geoff Ramsey to discuss how digital advertising is adapting to changing times, including the growth of the connected TV ecosystem, developments in privacy regulation, the quest for marketing attribution, and the need for identity resolution in a post-cookie world.

Instagram is considering paying publishers for news, but any deal will likely be limited in the same way Facebook’s model is.